Sunday, January 3, 2010

Well, it's 2010 and this procrastinating old fool has yet to review many of the movies he saw over the last few months of 2009. That procrastinating old fool is here today to remedy at least some of that. With that said, I give you three reviews of films that should have been written and posted more than a while ago. I will list them (for no other reason than because I want to) in preferential order, from best to worst.

First up is Wes Anderson's inevitable foray into animation, with the stop-motion screwball comedy Fantastic Mr. Fox (my review can be read here). Charming, but in the Wes Anderson definition of charm, Fantastic Mr. Fox is the more popular but less demanding of the two talking fox movies that came out in 2009. But chaos still reigns in Anderson's movie. It's just a somewhat more light-hearted kind of chaos. But hey, any movie with Bill Murray as a badger is just alright with me.

Second is the Jim Sheridan helmed remake of the Danish film Brothers (my review can be read here). It is a rather mediocre remake, as many a Hollywood retread of European fare tends to be, but occasionally the haphazard performances break through the surface to keep the film from faltering too far down the rabbit hole. Not exactly a rave review, but I suppose it could have been worse.

The third film of this triple play catch-up game is Roland Emmerich's disaster du jour 2012 (my review can be read here). Based on the idea that the world will end on 12/21/12 (thanks to those pesky Mayans and their unfinished calendar) this CGI-addled John Cusack adventure movie could have been a lot worse than it was. Another rave, eh? Emmerich has done giddy popcorn fun before with his favourite genre, but here his well seems to be beginning to run a bit on the dry side.

I'll be back soon with some more catch-up of 2009, with reviews of Where the Wild Things Are, La Belle Personne, Bad Lieutenant, Lake Tahoe, The Silence of Lorna, Coco Before Chanel, Amelia, Invictus, Amreeka, Disgrace, The Messenger and Avatar.